Thursday, February 13, 2014

'We lost assets. Why not ask for them back?'

In this interview with Rachel Avraham of Jerusalem Online, the President of the Association of Egyptian Jews in Israel, Levana Zamir (pictured at the UN in November 2013), applauds the proposal by John Kerry in his framework peace deal for an international compensation fund. However, Mrs Zamir criticises those members of Israeli society who do not take the plight of Jewish refugees seriously enough:

Zamir stressed that there was a February 2011 Knesset
Law, which states that all negotiations related to Palestinian refugees
should also include the rights of Jewish refugees from Arabic speaking
countries as well. “It is a special law by MK Nissim Ze’ev, in which it
is said each time that Israel talks about the peace process, each time
the Palestinian refugees enter into the negotiations, Israel has to
mention the Jewish refugees from Arab countries’ compensation,” Zamir
emphasized.

In April 2008, the US Congress recognized the Jewish refugees from
Arabic countries. Furthermore, Paragraph no. 8 of the Israel-Egypt
Agreement signed on March 1979 by Prime-Minister Menahem Begin, Sadaat
and Carter, after it has been confirmed by the Knesset and the Israeli
Government, said that an Israeli-Egyptian Committee will be established,
to negotiate any money claims of both sides.

While this committee was never established, Israeli negotiators have
stressed to the Egyptian Jewish community that their claims will be
negotiated in an all inclusive peace agreement. Zamir stressed, “This is
the time or never. More than 7.000 Claims Files were delivered by the
Jews from Egypt to the Ministry of Justice, out of 20.000 Claims Files
from all other Jews from Arab countries - which have been transmitted 4
years ago to the Ministry of Senior Citizens. These claims summarize
hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Zamir does not believe that certain members of Israeli society are
taking the plight of Jewish refugees from Arabic speaking countries
seriously enough, even though around one million Jews were compelled to
leave their homes within the Arab world, either via overt expulsion in
the wake of Israel’s declaration of independence or following intense
waves of anti-semitic violence. “Last week, the State of Israel
Comptroller delivered a very bad report about how the different
ministries handled the Jewish Refugees from Arab countries rights,
severely accusing them of terrible neglect,” she stated.

Some Knesset members reportedly view compensation for Jewish refugees
from Arabic speaking countries as “bribery” in order to compel Israel
to withdraw from certain areas in the territories. Israeli Justice
Minister Tzippi Livni has claimed that there is no connection between
the plight of Palestinian refugees and Jewish refugees from Arabic
speaking countries. Dr. Haim Saadun from the Open University prefers to
view the Jewish refugees from Arabic speaking countries as committed
Zionists that made Aliyah to Israel.

To such people, Zamir stated, “We lost our assets. Why not ask for
them back? Can you understand people saying we are not refugees? Why
only Holocaust survivors receive compensation and not us as well? Why
not ask for my inheritance? It’s mine.” She stressed, “We have to be
compensated. A right of return will never happen. Four millions Arabs
coming back here will make us dhimmi. Where there are Jews and Arabs,
the Jews are dhimmi. It will be war again.” In regards to the idea of
Jews returning to the Arab world, she emphasized, “They burn churches
and persecute Christians. Is that a place for us?”

“The solution was given by Bill Clinton in July 2010 that the right
of return won’t be,” she concluded. “There should be compensation to
both sides; the Jewish refugees and the Palestinian refugees. Clinton
called for an international committee to compensate and Israel agreed.
Arafat said no to everything. John Kerry is saying the same thing now.”
She stressed that Jewish refugees from Arabic speaking countries have
been fighting for compensation as part of a just resolution to the
Middle East refugee crisis for years and that now is the time to bring
compensation into fruition.

1 comment:

as a Jew from Egypt I really don't know what to claim!!My father entrusted the money of several Egyptian Jews to a trusted passer. That man disappeared. He with that money. So in fact we were doing something illegal. Is that valid to ask for compensations? sultana

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)